I Love Paris - The Next Steps

After piecing my purse both front and back, it was time to begin embellishment.   My internet research - Googling images for Paris, France, Spring/Springtime in Paris, Eiffel, fashion, bicycles, the Seine, etc. etc. - took place over at least three weeks leading up to the piecing of the purse.  I visited lots of sites and blogs, looked at works of art, personal photos posted, and even did a bit of sketching.  And then I went through all my books and my huge binder of inspiration pictures and bookmarked potential ideas. 

And, unlike many people who begin a project with a clear vision of what they want to portray or accomplish, my muse plays hide and seek during the process.  Often she'll trick me: some "must have" embellishment just doesn't fit, so I try something else, then something else again, and Wham!  She jumps out!  Other times, things develop naturally, step by logical step... just clicking along until I encounter a roadblock or a experience a lightening bolt of creativity.


I work MESSILY.   I must be surrounded by a sea of inspiration in the form of every possible piece of lace, trim, fabric, bead, sequin, button, jewelry - ANY potential inclusion.  So, after gathering my pictures and sketches, I gather the materials.

Lace, buttons, green trims

Pink trims, more lace, bling

Still more lace (I love lace!!), threads, beads (metal containers in upper right)

My work station is NOT a pretty sight when I get going.   I sit in my wing chair, have an empty upholstered sewing bench in front of me, and work surrounded by mess.  I love it.  Not pictured are the piles of books on the floor.  Also - see that remote?  It's to my boombox;  I often listen to music while working, but when I get in a groove, I don't like to get up and down to fiddle with disks, volume, etc.  

THE GIRL

One of the first motifs I decided on was a girl walking a French poodle.  I figured I could either stitch or bead the poodle, but the prospect of creating a girl or woman from scratch daunted me.   I had this little wood and wire girl that had been attached to the front of a greeting card I received several years ago.  She was hanging on my studio wall, just right in view.....  my muse suggested I use her!  Here's the "before"...

I drew the lines on her dress to show my DH where to cut her dress with his bandsaw.  If this girl was to become a young lady in Paris, she needed something more stylish.  DH cut off the flare, I gave her a haircut, painted her blouse off-white, and gave her a black lace skirt with a gold belt.  Inspired by Susan Elliot's June Bead Journal lady (check it out here), I made her a fashionable hat (instead of a mere beret!) and placed it mysteriously over her eyes.   I left the wire legs and arms as they were.... we have to have some use for our imaginations, don't we? Here's the "after":

In my next purse post I'll show you the Eiffel Tower beginnings,  working with lace in various areas, seam treatments and various placement dilemmas.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Enjoy these vintage images!

Have You Any Wool?

I finished another block in our Crazy Quilting International Wool "Do Your Block" Round Robin.  This one was Hideko's block.  She asked for stitching only - mostly seams, but some small stitched motifs were OK.  So..... this is what I came up with.

It's basically just embroidery.  And it was relatively quick and oh so fun!  This round robin has been a really nice change of pace - a sort of "back to basics".

Bruce and I went to Home Depot today and spent a pretty penny on the yards.  We got flowers for my front porch pots, weed & feed, mulch, bark, a compost bin, a new gas barbecue, and rocks for an area I need to get some control over, LOL.

We also bought a red maple to plant in the front yard where we
had our old pine tree cut out last year (see this post).    Originally we had planned to put in a flower/vegetable garden there in the front because our neighbor had an ugly Siberian Elm (a junk tree) that grew nearly overnight to shade our vegetable garden in the backyard.   We asked them if they would consider trimming it, and they were so kind and removed it altogether (they didn't like it either).  So, we had our garden back last year.

Today we decided to plant a maple and have the front area sodded where the old tree had been.  We contacted a local landscape contractor for a bid today.  These contractors, who gave us a reasonable bid early this afternoon, were out here in force an hour later working their fannies off.   Wow, people must really be in need of work!  I don't know whether to be sad about the situation, or happy that we can help them as they help us!  Anyway, the maple tree and sod are in.  They're digging up our parking strip sod.  We'll cap the sprinklers there and do some xeriscaping along the parking strip, since it never seems to look nice anyway.  And they're removing my d*@% holly bush that I've wanted out for years, but could never dig up myself.  And they're removing a dead tree stump of my beautiful golden chain tree (see picture above) that died last year.  We think it got poisoned when the contractors who removed the pine tree were poisoning the roots of the removed tree.

I've planted 3 colorful flowerpots for my front steps and have several to go.  I'll share pictures soon; the snowball bush and my irises are getting ready to bloom, so I should be able to take some good pictures next week.

I'm way behind on my commitments to CQI (posting about the June Challenge, which is Dimensional Embroidery).  So that is what I'm off to take care of now.    I'll continue with the purse-making posts early next week!

First Steps in Fashioning "I Love Paris"

I am not an expert in purse making, but I thought it might be fun to share with you my process in creating  “I Love Paris” - my purse (see previous post) that placed second in the Crazy Quilting International Annual Purse Contest.  It became a personal design challenge for me, as I had decided that this was the third and final time I would enter the contest.  

The first time I entered, in 2008, I won first place with Deco Diva.  It featured lots of “glam” in dusty pink and gold, and was crazy quilted on both sides.  It sported a simple cord handle, which always bothered me.  Last year I came in second with my Purple Purse (it never really had a name).  That purse was CQ’ed on one side only; the back was the inspiration fabric from which the color scheme was derived.  Again, the handle was plain cording, and it was lined in silk and featured A LOT of vintage lace. 

This year I knew I wanted pink and green colors, a better shape and a different style of handle.  The pink and green colors came about when I decided to use some yummy vintage French trim I’d purchased some time ago in an antique shop.  The hobo shape made for a simple, workable style, and ANYTHING was better than a plain cord handle. 

In going through my pink and green fabrics, I found a green taffeta with embroidered fleur-de-lis, a pink and green harlequin check, and two vintage pink fabrics – one with pink scrolls on it that reminded me of French wrought ironwork seen on lampposts, bistro sets and balconies.   The French theme hit me like a brick, and gave a real purpose and direction for all the elements that would follow.

With these general ideas in mind, I drew out a basic purse shape in pencil on muslin.  I felt the simple curves of a hobo shape, plus the Paris theme, called for curved (read: feminine) piecing.   Once I was satisfied with the design, I traced over it in marker.   The second side was done in the same manner, but with larger, simpler shapes; I knew that there would be an Eiffel Tower in there somewhere!  A seam allowance was added around the edge, and the pieces were numbered A, B, C, etc.     

To help me in piecing, I knew I’d need a way to reconstruct the pieces once traced and cut, so I wrote out a stitching order.   For example,  (1) A to B,  (2) C to D, (3) AB to CD, etc.   (See the first picture to follow that...)   Then I just matched the pieces to the fabric I wanted, adding a ¼” seam allowance around each piece, and cut the pieces.  With the help of my stitching order, piecing was a cinch. 

There was no backing at this point, so I cut out two pieces of muslin to match and basted them around the edges to the pieced sides.  I knew that once I started stitching seams and adding embellishments, it would end up having the same support properties as piecing directly onto the muslin.  

My next step was to madly being gathering any potential components and specific ideas, which I'll talk about in my next post, along with the beginning motifs and placement issues.  


Until then,

Purse Contest Winners Announced

Crazy Quilting International just announced the winners of their 2010 Annual Purse Competition .....  and for the second year in a row, I won second place!  (Two years ago I won first.  I think it's time to retire from this competition, LOL)!!   

Ah, but you ought to see the winner....... and you WILL.  When the purse pictures are posted to the CQI blog, I'll link you to it.  The winner was Kathy Shaw, and her The Queen's Garden purse was, in a word, STUNNING.  She deserved first place.  


But, since I can't show you her pictures or blog about that, you'll have to settle for second best, hehehe.  Actually, the voting was close - her purse had one more vote than mine.  So, without further ado, let me show you "I Love Paris".

The Poodle Side

This purse was conceived and designed last year when I purchased that vintage trim for $8.00.  That's a view of the back of it - you'll see a nicer view of it when I show you the other side of the purse.   Every inch I bought is on that purse....  And that pink rhinestone heart that's attached to the strap at the upper left.... that was a gift to me from Gerry K when she visited in February.  Little did she know that I'd have a use for it so soon!

It was fun to come up with ideas and motifs for this purse...... and I'm going to show you my design and construction processes in the next few blog entries.  

The Eiffel Side

There's a better view of the trim.  I really tried to make this an over-the-top frou-frou purse.  I had so many ideas that I couldn't include - I really should do a companion piece to include them all!

Ooh la la!!!  


So, stay tuned.  Next post I'll show you how I pieced this, and you'll be able to see the fabrics I selected, the piecing process (lots of curves) and how I researched ideas....


Hugs,

Happy May Day

Happy May Day to all you wonderful friends!  I hope you are enjoying a sunshine-y, warm May Day.  It's beautiful here, even if the sun hasn't even peeped out from the ominous rainclouds.

Here are some lovely floral prints for you....

Hugs,

If You Don't Like the Weather...

...just wait five minutes and it will change.  Utah's motto.  (I'm sure you've got one similar for your area).  


Today we had near white-out conditions here in the Salt Lake Valley.   The farm where I work (Wheeler Farm) canceled all school tours and wagon rides for safety issues.  I had a physical therapy appointment at 1:30 in the afternoon.


Here are a few pictures I snapped from my front porch before leaving for my appointment.

Looking east to driveway.  Spent daffodils in protected front window planterbox.  The grass, tulips and dwarf Japanese Maple are getting snowed on.

Looking across the street.  THIS IS A COLOR PHOTO!  It was snowing pretty hard at that point.

My pink tulips look like they've got white frosting on them!  

So, this is what it looked like around 1:00 in the afternoon.   Two hours later, when I got home around 3:00, this is what it looked like:

It's Utah in the spring.  What can I say??